A substantial number of new sources for the study of Jewish history and law have come to the attention of scholars during the past fifteen years. Only recently, rabbinic and lay court records from Jewish communities in early modern Europe and the Mediterranean world have begun to be inspected, though very few systematic studies of these sources have yet been undertaken. Rabbinic and community court records are fundamental not only to our understanding of Jewish autonomy and politics. They also represent a basic tool for discovering how Jewish law functioned in practice. Our goal is to incorporate these sources into the historical narrative so that we can better understand the role that Jewish and general law played in the life of individuals and their communities.

The following questions are central to the year-long investigations that are planned:

1. Did Jews engage in forum shopping between Jewish and non-Jewish courts, how was this viewed by rabbinic and lay authorities, and where there was opposition, what were the steps taken to prevent this?

2. Were adjustments in Jewish law (halakhah) among these steps, how familiar were Jews with general law, and did Jewish jurists incorporate aspects of general law, such as the ius commune, into their decisions?

The proposed Research Group intends to use rabbinic and lay court records to (re)define the place of Jewish law in daily life through modern legal theory and historical investigation.

Toward this end, we will place historians and legal scholars in dialogue on the substance and ramifications of these recently rediscovered sources. 

 

The 2022 Michael Bruno Memorial Awards

The Michael Bruno Memorial Awards are granted annually to three outstanding mid-career Israeli scholars who have demonstrated an exceptional originality of mind, dedication and ground-breaking impact in their research, and who have managed to influence and re-shape their field of expertise. These awards, a personal prize in an amount of 200,000 NIS, are the highest recognition of past accomplishments, but they are also a vote of confidence in the laureates’ future achievements and contributions to research and to Israeli academia.

As of 2022 the awards will alternate each year between STEM scholars and scholars in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Law. Thus, the 2022 award will be granted to STEM scholars, and the following year award will be granted to scholars in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Law.

 

Timeline

April 30, 2022                                  Deadline for submission of the nomination application (The system will be open for submission from February 15, 2022 onwards)

October 30, 2022                             Announcement of the 2022 Bruno Award laureates

January 2023                                   Academic Symposium in collaboration with the laureates

Who can nominate Bruno candidates?

The nominator must be a full professor or professor emeritus from any Israeli research institution. Each nominator may nominate only one candidate. No self-nominations will be accepted. Candidates should not be informed of their nomination.

 

Candidate eligibility

Eligible candidates must be faculty members of STEM fields in Israeli research institutions who are under 50 years of age as of February 15, 2022 or up to 15 years after their first University appointment.

 

Nomination process                              Submit a Nomination

The nomination deadline is April 30, 2022 and the form is to be submitted online.

The nomination form and all attached materials must be in English.

In the online form, the nominator is asked to enter the following details:

1. The candidate’s personal information: full name, date of birth, affiliation
2. Short description of your reasons for nominating the candidate (maximum 150 words)
3. Description of your relationship to the candidate, including comments pertaining to any potential conflicts of interest
4. A list of the candidate's three most important publications
5. Indication of the h-index
6. A list of 4 international experts in the candidate’s field and their contact information

In addition to the above, the nominator is required to provide the following documents (pdf format):

1. The candidate’s professional CV and a full list of publications
2. A letter written by the nominator recommending the candidate, and stressing the candidate’s impact on his/her research field and unique contributions
3. A letter from an additional faculty member in Israel (need not be a full professor but must be from a different academic institution than the nominator)
4. PDFs of the candidate’s three most important publications (indicated in the online form). If one of this publications is a book, one representative chapter from the book will suffice.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

 

The selection process

The selection is carried out in two stages. At the first stage, the list of candidates will be narrowed to a shortlist. At the second stage, each candidate on the shortlist will be evaluated with the help of external referees.

The candidates are selected by an external selection committee of renowned scholars (3-5 people) in the relevant fields. The decision of the selection committee will then be passed to the approval of the IIAS Board of Directors, before being announced officially.

The selected laureates and their nominators will be personally informed. A general announcement will be sent to all nominators via email.

Questions may be directed to Ms. Shira Barak, IIAS Secretary, at shirabar@savion.huji.ac.il